Could Tesla recommend which shared SC stall to use on arrival?

[rrolsbe]

Watched an out-of-spec Youtube video where he implied Rivian would suggest which shared stall to use on their new Adventure charging network. I do not know how close to real time the SC status is displayed on the Tesla in car Navigation system? The Tesla Nav system already gives us good information regarding the status of the SC stalls; however, if all of the available open stalls are sharing, it does not give us any suggestion as to which one to use. It is a crap shout which one to pick when selecting a shared slot. If Tesla knows the charge rate of the cars charging and how long it is until they have enough suggested juice to continue, they could relay that information to help guide arriving cars to the best shared stall(s) to use. This could decrease charge times which would be a benefit to both drivers and Tesla. If Rivian is actually doing something similar and given the competitive nature of Elon/Tesla, it could happen?

Crazy idea? thoughts?

 

[wwu123]

IMO, once they went to a default 50/50 split for shared V2 a few years ago, the benefit of suggesting a stall went down considerably, as the main improvement is getting into a 75/25 sharing with someone who's drawing <25% (<~37.5kw) for an extended period of time. Sure people do that, but hard to predict whether that person is having lunch and gong to stay longer, or leave right away to give an unshared situation, or leave and someone else comes in immediately.

If Tesla did something, it may as well be something simple that suggests pairing with someone who's been charging more than 30 min, or at more than 80% SOC. It's the remote equivalent of looking in-person for slow flashing green lights on the charge ports before picking a stall - though the latter is imperfect when the light is off on the locked cars.

 

[rrolsbe]

IMO, once they went to a default 50/50 split for shared V2 a few years ago, the benefit of suggesting a stall went down considerably, as the main improvement is getting into a 75/25 sharing with someone who's drawing <25% (<~37.5kw) for an extended period of time. Sure people do that, but hard to predict whether that person is having lunch and gong to stay longer, or leave right away to give an unshared situation, or leave and someone else comes in immediately.

If Tesla did something, it may as well be something simple that suggests pairing with someone who's been charging more than 30 min, or at more than 80% SOC. It's the remote equivalent of looking in-person for slow flashing green lights on the charge ports before picking a stall - though the latter is imperfect when the light is off on the locked cars.

Yeah the 30 min / > 80% would be better than nothing and should be fairly easy to implement. I have had people motion me to share with them because they were about to depart or were past 80% SOC and drawing way less than half the total of 150KW; however, that only happened a few times. Our plugin hybrid has five flashing lights that is a rough indicator of state of charge but like the green flashing "T" for Tesla does not flash when the vehicle is locked.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[RayK]

My recommendation to Tesla, if they are listening, is to put the station IDs (e.g., 1A, 3B) on TOP of the V2/V3 stands so that people can easily see which ones are being used. It's so much easier to determine the best station to use when there are several cars already there charging. With the IDs near ground level, you have to file in front of each stand to look between the cars to read them. I haven't used V2/V3 stations much; my typical ones are Urban (72kW) chargers but on my trip to Oregon last week it seemed like every Supercharger site I stopped at did not have adjacent shared stations (i.e., 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B...) but a scattered arrangement.

 

[rrolsbe]

My recommendation to Tesla, if they are listening, is to put the station IDs (e.g., 1A, 3B) on TOP of the V2/V3 stands so that people can easily see which ones are being used. It's so much easier to determine the best station to use when there are several cars already there charging. With the IDs near ground level, you have to file in front of each stand to look between the cars to read them. I haven't used V2/V3 stations much; my typical ones are Urban (72kW) chargers but on my trip to Oregon last week it seemed like every Supercharger site I stopped at did not have adjacent shared stations (i.e., 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B...) but a scattered arrangement.

I agree with your post. When the shared pedestals are not adjacent to each other, it can be confusing who you are sharing with. If the SC pedestals displayed approximately how much capacity was still available in KW, before you plugged into a shared pair, that would solve all the problems (this will not probably ever happen) . If the lights on the pedestal, that spell TESLA, could be individually dimmed, that could be a close enough power available indication. All bright you got it all, one dimmed you get less power and so on. I am sure Tesla would not want to totally turn off a letter but dimming might be acceptable who knows.

 

[jackmott]

V3 doesn't have the sharing issue right? Best thing to do is get everything up to v3!

 

[RayK]

V3 doesn't have the sharing issue right? Best thing to do is get everything up to v3!

Ah, yes. Didn't realize that V3 are dedicated power stations. Would be nice if they were all V3 but that's going to take some capital expenditure on Tesla's part.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Ah, yes. Didn't realize that V3 are dedicated power stations. Would be nice if they were all V3 but that's going to take some capital expenditure on Tesla's part.

Yeah, most of the V2 stations are garbage anyway though and need to be replaced. I usually have to try two or three stalls until I get one that charges at the right rate (and this is without anyone there). I avoid them if there is any way I possibly can (increasingly possible). Plus the cable is ridiculously heavy and a hazard to the car if it doesn’t latch onto the pedestal. They also seem very sensitive to high temperatures.

Hopefully the v3 have better reliability after a few years of getting thrashed and abused. Not that optimistic about it, but maybe they fixed some of the failure modes. So far very happy with most of my experiences at these newer stations.

 

[smatthew]

IMO, once they went to a default 50/50 split for shared V2 a few years ago, the benefit of suggesting a stall went down considerably, as the main improvement is getting into a 75/25 sharing with someone who's drawing <25% (<~37.5kw) for an extended period of time. Sure people do that, but hard to predict whether that person is having lunch and gong to stay longer, or leave right away to give an unshared situation, or leave and someone else comes in immediately.

If Tesla did something, it may as well be something simple that suggests pairing with someone who's been charging more than 30 min, or at more than 80% SOC. It's the remote equivalent of looking in-person for slow flashing green lights on the charge ports before picking a stall - though the latter is imperfect when the light is off on the locked cars.

My understanding is that when a part starts failing in the supercharger cabinet, the system goes to 50/50 split. I've been to V2 chargers that still do the "first driver priority split" thing. I've also been to sites (Springfield, OR I'm looking at you) where certain stalls split 50/50, and others still split properly.